Tips For Coaching Multiple Teams When Coaching Youth Football

Some of you may be in a position where you have to or maybe even want to help coach multiple teams during the same season. It can be done using some planning, scheduling and organizing techniques. Be warned however, it is not recommended for most and certainly not for those who don't feel very confident in your time management or coaching abilities.

I've head coached more than one youth football team in three seasons, more about that later. What is important is I have done it in real life, this isn't theory. Coaching Youth football is one thing, coaching multiple teams is a whole new equation.

Coaching more than one team may involve organizing your football practices in a way that is much different than what you are used to. In order to make it work, you have to get creative. Here are some of the things I did:

I started my football practices 30 minutes early for my younger team, My older team practiced 30 minutes later than the younger team. This allowed me 30 minutes of time alone with each team.

Early on we had a few practices alone, we varied the days each team practiced to allow each team one day per week alone with me.

We combined some of the skill building and technique work within age groups. Some of the more advanced and mature kids on the younger team practiced with the older team and some of the weaker older kids were grouped with the younger kids. This allowed our weaker older kids to rep and get better against kids of their own abilities while allowing the more mature younger kids to be challenged by the older kids. The groups worked side by side with both groups doing the same exact drills.

Most of the special teams work and dynamic warm ups including angle form tackling were supervised by my assistants, which gave me segmented "alone time" with one team.

Team Defensive segments were often done by the defensive coordinators after the first few weeks. In the first few weeks it was important to show the defensive coordinators and players how to run a proper team defensive and defensive recognition segment. After that it was just making sure the written practice plan covered what they needed to work on that segment and what football plays and formations they needed to concentrate on defending that week

You must delegate all the logistics responsibilities to other coaches and parents when coaching multiple youth football teams at once. When the parents pressured me into doing this, I responded by putting all the blocking dummies, and equipment on the field and requiring that they be responsible for it. I did the same for the team "books" and whatever else I could farm out to others. If you have a life, you have to.

Other key factors:

Most of my assistants were second or third year coached with me.The assistant coaches were believers in the system. I had full control of both teams. The parents wanted me to head coach both teams.You MUST have written minute-by-minute practice plans when having multiple teams or even one for that matter when coaching youth football.

My first year coaching two teams was simply because there were not enough coaches. We had plenty of coaches for our "A" and "B" teams but we were real short in our "In House" age 6-8 teams. Since it was "In House" and not very competitive I was able to add this team to my regular coaching duties that year, our age 8-10 "Select" team.

Another year I had to fire an entire age 13-14 coaching staff one week before their first game for not meeting the terms of the agreed upon coaches contract. In addition to that they were "stacking" a "B" team, a very unsportsmanlike and unfair thing to do which by the way is common with very weak coaches who feel the only way their youth football teams can do well is to have overwhelming talent. In this case this "B" team was coached by me and another coach that was also coaching another team at the same time. We couldn't practice all these teams on the same field so we went to a Tuesday/Saturday schedule. Fortunately the league scheduled so there were no game day conflicts. Funny how that works out when you try to do the right thing. By the way, we kicked the 4 best players up to the "A" team and ended up with a second place team in a very satisfying season.

In 2007 I head coached an age 7-9 and 10-11 team, due to pressure from parents to continue coaching their older children. My preference is to coach a new younger kids team every year and send players on to the next age group rather than stay with the team as they age through the system. In 2008 I'm head coaching 3 teams but we have put in place a set mentoring/apprenticeship program for head coaches that will allow me to go back to coaching just one team in 2009.

If you decide to do this, make sure all your coaches are on board. Make sure to consult with the parents and for safety reasons, do not put kids of dissimilar abilities with huge age gaps against one another.

Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive and well organized. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book "Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan" was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach, Dave has developed a detailed systematic approach to developing youth players and teams. His personal teams to using this system to date have won 94% of their games in 5 Different Leagues.

To Sign up for his free tips newsletter or to see his 325 free tips go to: Football Plays.

A Taste of Dave's teams: Coaching Youth Football.

Offensive Line

Coaching Youth Football - The Snack Schedule

This is a tough one especially if you are coaching a younger youth football team. My personal opinion is there is no need for a snack before the game or at the half. I am not even a fan of it after the game since the kids are more concerned about getting their food and not listening to the coaches.

We live in a democracy so plan on the kids getting something. The younger the team is the more likely there will snacks. This is where the Team Mom needs to assign a schedule for the families. I try to keep it to just a beverage, like Gatorade and only for AFTER the game. One year I allowed for oranges at half time since the parents thought it would energize the kids. What a nightmare! The kids used more energy pushing each other over to get to the bag of orange slice. No one listened and the player left orange peels all over the place. Half time was spent cleaning the mess made on the field. I have seen some teams have a "party" at half time with all kinds of cookies and other stuff. No way will I allow snacks at half time. If the individual parent gives you a hard time tell them to bring something for their kid and the parent can feed it to them while you speak to the team at half time.

I need to remind myself I am out here for the kids and if snacks are important, then I will try to accommodate that as long as it does not interfere with the coaching.

Jim has over 22 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach. The system he has used with great sucess for both youth football and youth basketball. His personal teams have won over 80% of their games.

Jim has over 200 Free Youth Football Articles at : http://www.jimoddo.com

Copyright 2009 Jim Oddo, jimoddo.com, Oddo & Oddo, Ltd., Mega Media Depot and http://www.jimoddo.com republishing this article in it's entirety or any parts of it without including this paragraph is copyright infringement

Youth Football Coaching - Duties For the Team Mom

Once you have your youth football coaching staff, including the serious parents who commit as assistant coach, you still will need a lot of help to make the season go as smooth as possible.

The team mom can be the most helpful of all parents. Make sure you have the full list of duties for the team mom. I find it best to let them know up front what they are volunteering for. The usual duties always include the following:

1. Typing and Passing out a roster list with all the players names, numbers, parents names and contact info
2. Emergency phone numbers lists
3. Organizing the homecoming of Rally night which may include assigning things for people to bring.
4. Help passing out uniforms
5. Collection of money and delivery of uniforms to local shirt shops to get the names printed on the back
6. Email updates to the parents
7. Make and distribute an assignment list for game day duties
8. Make and distribute a snack list. I'm funny about this and have pretty much gotten away from it. A lot of teams do a halftime and end of the game snack. I have eliminated both since I believe they are a distraction. An after game beverage like Gatorade is fine.
9. Plan and book the year end banquet. This will include collecting the money from each parent.

These are the main things I will have the Team Mom take care of.

I usually get some one to volunteer very early to be Team Mom. I think the earlier in your youth football year the better. You will find that most of the time the same mom volunteers year after year.

Jim Oddo

Jim has over 22 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach. The system he has used with great success for both youth football and youth basketball. His personal teams have won over 80% of their games.

Jim has over 200 Free Youth Football Articles at: http://www.jimoddo.com

Copyright 2009 Jim Oddo, jimoddo.com, Oddo & Oddo, Ltd., Mega Media Depot and http://www.jimoddo.com republishing this article in it's entirety or any parts of it without including this paragraph is copyright infringement.

Coaching Tips For Youth Football

Football coaching for kids can really be demanding and hard work. Football is a game of intensity and team work. Coaching will be aimed at making youngsters acquainted with the sport. And the first step is to understanding the sport. Then there comes the need of strength, agility and various other forms of training sessions. In fact there are some coaching tips for youth football.

Basically during coaching, the offense would be mainly focused on possession and scoring while the defense would be concentrated on stopping the charge from the opposite team. Just trained basically form the holding the ball, throwing to all other aspects, kids also should be taught about the rules of the game and play it in a right way. And the individual abilities and how well kids play in different positions will be the main points. Besides, the training sessions in a fun way and effective way would engage these children in game.

As well, to be a good football coach for kids, there are far more works to do. As a football coach for kids, you also have the responsibility of develop trainee' s life skills as well as football skills. You should encourage players to think for themselves and be age-aware that these inexperienced players would make many mistakes. Just make attainable goals for them and let them play football.

Just do not concentrate solely on winning and make effective communication, not say too much and too little. And the most important thing is to make it fun and be enjoyable during the training sessions. Actually there are so many things one needs to know as they start playing football. The training will focus on all aspects of the game and how to work as a team.

As a part of team gear, nfl football jerseys are really popular. And for those little fans of NFL football, those great children's nfl jerseys are really their favorite. Some black and white nfl jerseys sell well online.

Coaching Football Special Teams

I called a friend of mine who is the Head Coach at a Big East Football team and we talked about how his football team coaches special teams., these are some of the comments made during that interview.

One of the first things they try to do is to let the kids know there are areas where we can achieve certain goals on special teams. Clearly the skilled players want to be on the special teams. They want to touch the football. But the question is how do you draw the interest of the other players on the special team who do not get to touch the football? How do you keep the left tackle on the extra point team interested? We came up with an award for the special team player of the year based on a point system. We went out and got the largest trophy we could find. It is about three-feet high. We wanted to get the biggest and gaudiest trophy we could find. We wanted our players to see the trophy every day. The trophy cost us about $100. The bang for our bucks came from the fact that we saw our kids change their attitude on how they could win the special teams player of the year. If you are going to emphasize something you must give the players a carrot, and we did that with the trophy.

In our team room we have three distinctive goals and the goals are displayed on banners. The banners are 12-feet wide by eight-feet tall. They are prominent in our team room. When you walk into our team room it is unmistakable that we have special team goals, offensive team goals, and defensive team goals.

Let me go over our special team goals

Win

Better than average field position after kickoff than opponent

Better net punt average than opponent

Score or set up a score

Give the offense the ball at least one time on the plus -50-yard line

Never give the opponent the ball on our side of the 50-yard line

Perfect execution on holds, snaps, and ball security

Have at least one game breaker - score, block a punt, block a kick, recover an onside kick, cause a turnover, recover a turnover, down a punt inside the 10-yard line, 60 yards of field position change

No penalties

Win the hidden-yardage game - kickoff - kickoff return - punt - punt return

First is to win. That is our first goal. The reason we try to stay away from numbers on the net punt average is the fact there are so many obstacles that may not allow us to achieve these goals.

If we get someone who kicks the ball in the end zone or there is a penalty after the kick, it can eschew the numbers relative to better kickoffs for the opponents. What we want is the average. The same thing is true with having a better punt return average than our opponents.

If you break down the film, you will find the special teams set up a lot of your scores. And a lot of the times the coaches do not even talk about that point. You do not build the creditability into your special teams. You tend to lose it in its perspective.

We want to give the ball to our offense at least one time on the plus 50-yard line.

There are several ways to make this happen. It could be by a punt, pressure, or on any of our kickoffs. We want our kids to understand what we want in this respect.

When we had all of the numbers as goals, such as getting the ball on the 25-yard line, or return the ball 25 yards, they do not remember those things.

On the other hand, we do not want to give our opponent the ball on our side of the ball.

We want to have perfect execution on all special team plays.

We want to have at least one game breaker.

The one point here that we think is big is to down a punt inside he 10-yard line. To us, that is a game breaker. If you do the job on defense you will probably set up a score or get into a potential scoring situation.

All of these are great goals. But the one goal that we work on more than any other is the last goal: win the hidden yardage game.

Let me categorize hidden yardage. Here we are talking about the kickoff, kickoff returns, punts, and punt returns.

We use the 25-yard line on kickoff returns and 35-yards net on punts and calculate the yards. Let me give you an example. If we have a team that kicks the ball out of the end zone on us, it means we would start the ball in play from the 20-yard line. This means we are at a minus 5 yards in hidden yards against our opponents. Conversely, if we had a kickoff that we returned to the 50-yard line, we would have a plus 25 yards on the hidden yardage.

We do the same thing on punts. We use 35 as the magic number.

If we had a punt that netted 50 yards, we would be plus 15 yards in the hidden yardage.

If you keep track of these hidden yards, you will find they make a difference in winning and losing.

Those numbers are going to come back to you better than some of the other numbers you may throw at your players when you put up your goals. You want to make sure when the players leave the meeting that they know what hidden yardage is. If you can get your players to understand hidden yardage, you are going to win a lot of battles.

We want to put some competitive goals into the special teams, so we came up with a point production chart.

On the chart we have team points and individual points. We feel it is important if you are on a particular team to have a chance to get points on the special teams.

Our long snapper came within four points of winning the award this year. Our left guard was in the top three for the special team award. So we have team points that we give out for punt and extra point as well as individual points. If you do not do this the skilled players will run away with the award.

TEAM POINTS - (10)

Score

Block a punt

Block a kick

Recover an onside kick

Successful fake

TEAM POINTS (3)

Stop a fake

Down a punt inside 10-yard line

TEAM POINTS (2)

Kickoff return of plus 30 yards

Punt return of plus 10 yards

INDIVIDUAL POINTS (10)

Cause a turnover

Recover a turnover

60-yard field position change

INDIVIDUAL POINTS (5)

Game winning field goal

Involved in 15 or more plays

INDIVIDUAL POINTS (3)

De-cleater

Tackle

Key block on return

Exceptional effort

4.0 hang time on kickoff or touchback

4.5 hand time on punt or 40-yards net with fair catch

INDIVIDUAL POINTS (2)

Assisted tackle

INDIVIDUAL POINT (1)

Doing your job on every play on a special team Victory award.

The coach who is responsible for that particular team grades the film. There is some flexibility in the system and we do have minus points. If you get a penalty you get minus 5 points. On any missed assignment you receive minus 5 points. The kids are going to see the chart on Sunday. That is the first thing we talk about in our team meeting.

We have the chart in our team room. You can see how we chart the players each week. On the left-hand side of the chart we have all of the players listed. We grade the film and give the players the points they earn in each area. On the left side of the chart are the team points and on the right side of the chart are the individual points. Also on the right outside of the chart we have the players' total points for the last game.

I think it is important to have this information displayed in the locker room so the kids can see how they are being graded on the special teams. We are trying to build some ownership in this team. This chart will help you build your case for special teams.

We have another chart where we keep a running total of all the games. Each week the kids can see where they rate on the chart. They can come into our meeting knowing they earned a certain number of points from the last game or knowing they lost a certain number of points. We think the chart is good because the kids can see where they stand game by game.

This system really works for us. It keeps our kids motivated each week about the ranking for winning the special teams trophy!

For more information about coaching football special teams go to the website listed below.

Todd Krueger is a former NFL Quarterback that was a 8th round draft pick in 1980 by the Buffalo Bills. He also played with the Houston Oilers, Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Wranglers in the USFL.

He now runs a football coaching website at http://www.footballtools.com and quarterback training website at http://www.playqb.com were they offer low cost football coaching products such as NFL Football Playbooks, Youth Football Practice DVDs, Quarterback Training DVDs, Football Scouting Software, Football Playbook Software, Free Quarterback Drills, Football Special Teams DVDs, Football Workout DVDs, Football Practice DVDs.

You can also get a free football newsletter at the website.

Youth Football Coaching Clinics

If you are near, make sure and hit the Frank Glazier Football Coaching Clinics. They are free for any youth football coach.

I'm presenting 5 topics and look forward to meeting with if you stop by the Chicago, Indianapolis, Baltimore or St Loius Clinics. The best time to get me is before the sessions start or in an open slot.

Setting off tomorrow for the Frank Glazier Clinic in Indianapolis. One of the benefits of speaking at the Nike and Glazier Clinics is I get to meet a lot of youth football coaches from all over the country. They tell me so many interesting and amusing stories from their youth football leagues. Quite often I get to talk to coaches that are already running my system and it seems they almost always have about the same story to tell, they were a little skeptical, the practice methodology and schemes were a bit different than they were used to, but in the end the kids had a blast and the team did well. I always enjoy hearing the trials, tribulations and success stories of my fellow youth football coaches, especially if they have been running my system. Where I learn the most from is through all the youth coaches that share their experiences with me. They present various schemes, techniques, special rules and countermeasures they see in their leagues and we often noodle out ideas and solutions together to solve the issue. Quite often the answer lies on applying specific concepts straight from the book and in other situations it is the same exact thing that happened to XYZ team in Jenks Oklahoma that was solved by doing ABC in 2003. You get the ideam it's all good.

Clinic Benefits "For Me"

The other benefit from doing so many clinics is I get to hear other speakers. I don't just do my sessions or other youth sessions and go back to my room. I usually attend sessions all day and meet with coaches to discuss techniques, schemes and strategies in-between, before and after those sessions. I also usually have breakfast, lunch and dinner with youth, high school and even college coaches to help me become a better coach. Anytime any of us think we have all the answers, we get passed by our competition. I am always looking for ways to improve every aspect of our team and offering at Winning Youth Football.

Benefits for YOU

I always share the ideas I pick up at these clinics that I think make sense for youth coaches. It is rare that I can't take at least one idea or concept from each session and apply it to what I want to accomplish in youth football and I share those ideas here with you on this blog. I got some great ideas from a youth coach in Florida last year that only started running my system in 2006. I got a great tip from Tyrone Willingham in Northern Virginia last year on how to stop our linemens "false step" problems. I got some great tips at a Nike Clinic from a High School coach on our Jet Sweep Series. I got some outstanding ideas from Darrin Slack in Boston on passing grips. I got some ideas that worked for us on Team Building from Les Miles. I got some offensive line drills we could adapt to what we do from a High School coach in Philly.

You get the idea, you can always learn. The coaching clinics are a real blessing and educational experience if you work them hard and are diligent in understanding where you need help and how realistically applicable are the tips, schemes and techniques to your youth football team and your specific grouping of kids. But don't take my word for it, go to these clincs yourself, they are well worth the time.

Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive and well organized. He is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book "Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan" was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington.

With over 15 years of hands-on experience as a youth coach, Dave has developed a detailed systematic approach to developing youth players and teams. His personal teams to using this system to date have won 97% of their games in 5 Different Leagues. His web site is: Football Plays

Youth Football - Why Being Different Leads to Championships When Coaching Youth Football

Being Different Pays When Coaching Youth Football

While youth football and college football are worlds apart in many ways, there certainly are some similarities. How many of you are following what Paul Johnson is doing at Georgia Tech this year? Many "experts" said Johnson's Flexbone option attack would never work at the big DI level. Never mind that Johnson was hugely successful with this attack at Georgia Southern, winning two Division IAA National Championships and going 62-10 in six seasons there. Never mind that Johnson then went to Navy and using the very same offense, guided Navy to its first winning season in 14 years. His teams went 45-29 at Navy, which is a miracle turnaround compared to the 72-148 record compiled by his 4 predecessors. Mind you Navy has some serious personnel constraints due to their Military Academy status and the fact the kids have to meet very high academic and character standards as well as serve 4 years in the Service once their college playing days are over, Oh yeah, by the way, we are at war.

Georgia Tech and Paul Johnson

In Johnson's first season at Georgia Tech, his team is on the cusp of winning an ACC Title and is at 9-3. He is doing it with the exact same offense he ran at Southern and Navy, the option. He is doing this in his very first season with a team that was recruited to play a completely different offense. His quarterback is not an option quarterback, his linemen aren't option linemen. Heck his starting left offensive tackle started the season as a slot back and has never played the line at any level of football, even in his Pee Wee days. Georgia Tech also has very high admission standards that other schools aren't constrained with. Did any of you see Tech just blow out Miami and all the top talent the Hurricanes had amassed on defense, or how about the 45 points they put on SEC power Georgia last week? What Johnson has done is nothing short of amazing.

What Does This Mean for the Youth Football Coach?

But the question is why is he so successful and how can I use that information to my advantage when I'm coaching youth football? One huge reason his teams are so successful no matter where he goes is; Johnson runs a system no one else runs anymore. Teams just aren't used to defending the option. Miami and Georgia, both teams loaded with High School All-Americans and Rivals top 10 Recruiting classes, looked completely lost against Johnson's offense. These college defenses are used to seeing the spread offense or versions of it nearly every week. The defensive schemes and techniques they use to shut down the spread teams are much different than what you use to effectively play a well executing option team.

In fact some of the read and react concepts a 3 technique defensive tackle uses to defend the option are 100% contrary to what this player has learned and practiced for in the last 9 months. So you get one week to retrain that defensive tackle to "forget" what he has learned the previous 9 months and to react perfectly to his option reads in split second real time. Oh yeah lets not forget that you also have to retrain your force and alley defenders as well and remember Tech does throw a descent play action pass when you least expect it as well. That is why you see Georgia Tech going on drives where they get plays of 2 yards, 5, 8, -1, 8, 3,2,2,7, 2, 50. The defense just has a heck of a time staying perfect with their reads being done in split seconds, using techniques and schemes they use for just 1 week per year. Just one wrong read and boom it's a huge gain or 6 points.

Execution

Another thing Johnson's teams do is execute. Against Miami, Tech ran the midline option at least 22 times, in one drive sequence they ran the same midline option play 3 times in row. In the Tech and Miami games about 90% of Techs offense was the true triple option, midline and a little bit of rocket to keep the edges honest. Yes, just 3 football plays but the execution was flawless, the downfield and perimeter blocking was incredible.

Player Talent Available

Johnson also is a realist. At Navy and Georgia Tech, is he really going to be able to recruit the best passing Quarterbacks in the country? You know the 5 star kid being recruited by USC or Texas ? Is he really going to get a kid like that to go to Navy or Tech? How about that 5 star 300 lb Offensive Lineman? Is he going to get that kid over LSU or

Oklahoma? Heck at Navy they wouldn't even admit a 300 lb kid. So Johnson chose a system that allowed him to be successful with the grouping of kids he was realistically going to get.

Here in Nebraska the Huskers are set to play on January 1 in the Gator Bowl. Who does this team NOT want to play? I guarantee you it is the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets. Even with a month of preparation time, NU would much rather face another spread attack, We love the option here in Nebraska and we love to watch Johnson's offense, but we definitely do NOT want to see it being run against us.

Applying This to Your Youth Football Team

What does this mean to the local youth football coach? Should you shuck your current offense and sell out to an option attack? I'm not sure. I coached Nebraska style "I" option football for 7 years at the youth level. We did fairly well for 4 of those 7 seasons, winning 2 League Titles. But when I didn't have a smart and athletic Quarterback and a difference maker at Tailback, we struggled ( really need to have 2 good Quarterbacks in that offense). I just couldn't count on having that type of talent every year when I coached non-select teams. I also didn't want to practice 5 nights a week anymore, we wanted to go to a 3 nights a week format.

What Johnson's offense means to you is you should consider running something that you have the talent and time for as well as something that is different than what everyone else in your league is running. It means you should perfect a handful or complementary series based football plays that put the defense in conflict. It means you don't run 40-60 plays in some disjointed playbook. These are some of the main reasons we run the Single Wing offense with our youth football teams. Less than 3% of youth football teams are running this offense. Your opponents just are not used to defending this attack and some of the unique series or blocking schemes we use like the full spin, half spin, wedge, jet, traps etc Most youth football teams have lots of "I", Pro, Spread, "Multiple" and even Wishbone or Double Wing teams, but how many Single Wing teams do you see? Very very few. It's a series based offense based on putting a defense in conflict and execution, it isn't an offense that relies on great talent making huge plays.

So all the "experts" and naysayers have been proven wrong so far about Paul Johnson. That "%$3&' won't work in big time DI football, they said. You don't see the pros run it they said. Same goes for the Single Wing, we are seeing it with more and more High School teams as well as of course Florida and Mississippi in the SEC and of course now in the NFL with the Dolphins and Ravens. Hopefully the Single Wing won't get too popular, because how effective can you really be running what everyone else is running unless you have the very best players? How much fun would that be? It would all be about recruiting or drafting players and very little to do with coaching.

Dave Cisar-

Dave is a Nike "Coach of the Year" Designate and speaks nationwide at Coaches Clinics. His book "Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan" was endorsed by Tom Osborne and Dave Rimington. His personal teams using this system to date have won 90% of their games in 5 Different Leagues.

To Sign up for his free tips and drills newsletter or to view 400 free youth football coaching tips go to: Football Playbooks

A Video Taste of Dave's teams:
Youth Football Plays

Coaching Youth Football - Offensive Line

The offensive lineman is the unsung hero of any good offense. He is not always recognized as the hero of the game. But without him the backs can't run anywhere. NO line, NO scoring, NO winning. This tells me the better the offensive line the better the team. The offensive line is a team within a team. They have to play as a unit from left end to right end. They can and should help each other. They MUST work together.

The offensive lineman must have the determination and the mental discipline to practice different blocking assignments constantly. His blocks must be correct on every play and that can only be achieved through working hard everyday at practice. There are no shortcuts in this respect. You must practice hard if you want to get better.

Blocking is the key to any offensive game. Good offensive line play is based on a good stance, an explosive start, body control, correct hitting position on contact , delivery of a forceful block and driving your legs. The line must come off the ball as one. Explode with the snap, staying low, make contact, bring forearms and shoulders up and into his man, keeping his legs under himself and moving, driving his man out.

Remember he doesn't have to move the defensive man too far to open up the hole. You might have to move him left or right and you always want to move him back. To do this keep your body square and use short choppy steps.

I am a youth football coach. dedicated to teaching the game of football. The passion for youth sports has inspired my family and I to create a web site for helping youth coaches of all youth sports. My family has coached football, baseball, wrestling, and cheerleading for over 30 years. You can check out our web site at http://www.wecoachyouthsports.com